“O how lovely, O how pure is this perfect Child of heaven.”

Carol: He Is Born – Traditional French Carol
Tune: IL EST NE (18th Century French)

So many descriptors, so little time! We can’t seem to come up with enough words to describe the Little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay, can we… especially in our songs during this season? And that is a good thing. This incredible Gift is beyond description, yet we continue to make attempts to do just that.

This many-times-translated text from the French carol “He Is Born” captures three central, spot-on taglines for this Divine Christ Child: lovely, pure, perfect. Whatsoever things are… think on these.

During these days surrounding Christmas, we spend more time in our memory bank than at any other season it seems. Events that we have thought long-forgotten resurface and become once-again meaningful, taking us back to lovely, pure, more-perfect times.

One of those has come to me lately involving an early yuletide experience in Pigeon Forge. It was the year my two main gifts were a metal parking garage with elevator and circular ramp (three cars included) and my first piano – eight white notes with the black ones painted on. I was probably two years old, maybe three.

The distinct memory is that the pastor (Preacher Whaley) and his wife (Mrs. Preacher)… yes, that’s what we all called her!... were there when I opened my gifts. It was our tradition to open gifts on Christmas Eve, and for some reason the local clergy and spouse were in my family’s living room watching me jump up and down with delight with gifts that would prepare me for my life’s work – well, one of them would! (I did pump gas at a Sinclair station in high school if that counts.) It was a lovely, pure and near-perfect time in my life… an innocence to which I would love to return.

Our tree in that house sat in front of the same window from which a couple of years later I watched the Ku Klux Klan burn a cross in the neighbor’s yard across the street. So much for lovely, pure and perfect.

I’m glad Christmas and the Baby whose birth we celebrate during these days allows us to get past the struggles that have marred our long and winding way to where we are now – who allows us to cherish those childhood memories and try to figure out why in the world they come to mind -- and who provides us opportunities to restart our lives… to be lovely, pure and perfect in His sight, over and over again, year after year, Christmas after Christmas.

O lovely, pure and perfect Lord Jesus Christ, may we jump up and down with delight with the gifts you give us to prepare us to continue to minister. Amen.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzfCljfU180